Day 13 Seaworld

Early alarm this morning as we want to get to Seaworld for park opening. We left the villa at 8.15 and pulled into the Sea world car park at 9am - perfect.  Our mission today was to ride the new Antarctica -Empire of the penguin attraction and to do the other shows that we hadn't done last week.  The Antarctica ride was walk on.  It appears to be the only way now to see the penguins.  We liked it but felt it was very slow at loading and probably not worth more than a 15 minute wait. Had seen queue times of 70 mins last week and highest today of 45!

Keith decided not to join us for a ride on Journey to Atlantis, probably wise as I came off quite wet!  Good job the sun is shining :)

We dried off while we watched the Dolphin Show.  This is the same show as we saw 3 years ago, with the dolphins, parrots, divers and acrobats.  It is good and very colourful but I still prefer the old show where it was the dolphins and the begulas.

Shark Encounter was next.  We looked in the pool outside at the rays and sharks before heading inside to walk through the tunnels.

Wild Arctic was next.  The ride was a walk on and gave us plenty of time to stop and look at the belugas and polar bear before heading to Shamu Stadium for the 12 o'clock show. 

The Shamu show is probably my favourite show at sea world.  There were lots of Killer Whales in the show and it was lovely.

Stephen was itching to re-do the coasters so we headed for Kraken.  5 minutes wait and we were just about to board when they issued a warning that there was bad weather in the area and they were monitoring it.  No problem we were on next anyway.  Err No.  We got on, fastened harnesses and belts and then they all opened again and we were told to get off as there was lightning in the area and all outdoor rides had been "temporarily closed".  We waited on the station for about 30 mins as we were told we would be first on when they reopened, but with no let up in the rain we gave up and went to do some shopping instead.  A quick stop at the bakery to buy a couple of cakes and a couple of soft toys bought and finally the rain looked like it might be stopping.  We headed back to Kraken and decided to wait til 4pm (10 mins) to see if they opened.  The sun was shining again.  At 2 minutes to 4 they announced the ride was reopening.  At last we managed to get on a ride - 3 hrs after we had been sent off!!  Oh well.

rain!

We walked over to Manta but because of all the delays there was now a queue of 45 minutes, so we gave up, collected out belongings from the locker we had stowed them in and left the park - just as they were announcing more inclement weather and the rides were shutting again!

This weather seems perfectly normal for this time of year - early mornings are great til about 2pm when it can become very wet for a number of hours if not the rest of the day!  Still hot tho.

We went back to the villa and had a swim (sun was out again).

Sarah and Stephen were keen to have Chinese takeaway but Keith and I didn't fancy it, so we got them a takeaway from Berry Centre and left them at the villa while we went out to the Santa Fe Cattle Co.  Yet another new restaurant, on the US27 just north of the 192, and another we would love to go to again!

2 weeks isn't long enough to try all these fab restaurants.